


Deja Vu

by soultyghost



Series: Crying, Laughing, and Blazing Ahead [3]
Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Battle at Gronder Field spoilers, Divine Pulse, F/M, Fire Emblem: Three Houses Golden Deer Route Spoilers, Post-Time Skip, death quote spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-10
Updated: 2019-10-10
Packaged: 2020-11-28 21:24:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 683
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20973278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soultyghost/pseuds/soultyghost
Summary: Ingrid died. But then she didn't. Claude was left with questions.





	Deja Vu

There was always something new about Professor Byleth that Claude still hasn’t discovered. After the professor’s reappearance, Claude realized just how much he trusted the professor when they couldn’t give him a straight answer. Five years was enough time for him to mellow out. To take what the professor says in face value. To look elsewhere for answers.

But there was one thing Claude couldn’t ask Professor Byleth. Something he feared to put into words. 

Back in the academy, Claude would sometimes feel the strangest sense of déjà vu. Sometimes it would be phantom pain in various parts of his body, but most often it was a sharp pain deep within his soul. It only happened during skirmishes back in the academy, so for the longest time, Claude believed that it was a manifestation of his distaste for killings. 

In the five years the professor was absent and the entirety of Fodlan was embroiled in war, Claude killed and lost more people than he could count without being revisited by that feeling. He had almost forgotten the subtle pervasiveness in his subconscious until Ingrid lay dying in his arms.

“Glenn…” Ingrid choked out along with spittle and blood. Her eyes were losing focus and Claude couldn’t shake her out of her daze. 

“Ingrid! I’m here with you, Ingrid. Help is coming, so stay with me!” Claude chanted as he watched the soft glow of Physic magic arching across the sky from the rearguard where the monks and bishops stood.

“I’ll see you soon,” she replied.

Claude felt the temperature drop at her words despite the unbearable heat from Central Hill that the Imperial Army had set aflame. It was only then that his brain registered that Ingrid had called out her dead fiance’s name. He grasped at her wrist as she slowly raised her arm towards his face.

“Death isn’t sad...not really,” she said.

Claude wanted to laugh. Was she really trying to soothe him when she was the one nursing a fucking arrow wound in her stomach? Him, of all people? His tears had long dried, years before he left home. Tears never solved anything. Action did.

He wrapped his free hand around the arrow’s shaft as the Faith magic bathed Ingrid’s wound in a warm light. He had to break the shaft so that he could comfortably carry her on his wyvern to safety. Ingrid was safe from immediate danger but she was clearly delirious from blood loss.

“Don’t cry, Glenn,” Ingrid whispered. 

Claude couldn’t tell if the sharp sound piercing his ears was the sound of the arrow shaft breaking or his heart. Even though they were in the thick of battle, Claude suddenly remembered something Sylvain had said to him back when they were students and he was still going around trying to dig up everyone’s secrets.

> _ “The moment Ingrid was born, the battle was already lost. You think that just because the person who owns her heart and soul is dead, he’s actually out of the picture?” _

* * *

The actual Battle at Gronder Field was over and the generals were all gathered in the war room for a post-mortem. Claude tuned out Lorenz’s speech and glanced across the room where Ingrid was in a deep discussion with Sylvain and Felix over by the corner. She looked distressed, rightfully so considering who they had to fight, but overall healthy. It turned out that she did sustain wounds but none that endangered her life.

If it wasn’t for the chaos brewing in his heart and the way Professor Byleth guiltily shifted their gaze away when their eyes met, Claude would have dismissed the whole thing as a daydream. But it wasn’t. He was sure of it. 

He should be relieved that Ingrid was alive and well. He was, really. He didn’t know he could care for someone that much. And for Ingrid of all people. But now he had to deal with undesirable realizations and difficult questions in the midst of a turning point in their war against Edelgard.

The question was, did he have the guts to face it?

**Author's Note:**

> i wanted to save this for my main fic but the time skip is so far away and i'm impatient for more inclaude content (yeah i read my own fics to sate my rarepair thirst what about it). i'll most probably change this section by the time i reach it in the main fic anyway.


End file.
